Herb Roth (1887-1953) crafted this delightful endpapers illustration for the 1923's Aunt Polly's Story of Mankind, written by Algonquin Round Table regular Donald Ogden Stewart and published by the George H. Doran Company.
Stewart had previously written A Parody Outline of History, and the Aunt Polly book is an interconnected set of humorous short stories set in different epochs. Stewart would go on to write many screenplays, including The Philadelphia Story and then be blacklisted and chased from the United States during the McCarthy Era, never returning to America during the final 30 years of his life.
Meanwhile, one of the interesting side notes of Roth's long career as an artist involved a never-published version of Mighty Mouse comic strips in the 1940s. You can read more about that at Cartoon Research.
Here's a better look at Roth's right-hand side of the endpapers, which are partially blurred in the full scan.
At York's Book Nook Bonanza earlier this month, I bought an amazing old encyclopedia — the 1946 edition of Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia and Fact-Index. The illustrations, typography and graphics throughout the 15-volume set are just stunning, and I know we'll be returning to it again and again. I also expect it to make many appearances here on Papergreat.
Today, I thought I'd share this infographic from the article titled "Immigration" in Volume 7. Here are some excerpts (not necessarily endorsements) from that entry:
"Only the Indians can properly call themselves native Americans, and even they are believed to have come from Asian centuries ago. All the rest of the people of the United States are immigrants or descendants of immigrants."
"At first, the United States held out open arms to the stranger. There were canals to be dug, railroads to be built, minerals to be mined, forests to be cut, farm lands and prairies to be cultivated, great industrial plants to be manned. ... They brought their families with them. They were eager to become citizens. Stalwart, courageous, and upstanding, they were, as a rule, intelligent, educated, and skilled in the use of tools."
"The 'new immigration' [1905-1915] differed from the old in several respects. ... They were largely illiterate; and they were not so easily Americanized. Many of them had no intention of becoming citizens. They had a tendency to be clannish, to live together in the same part of a city, and to cling to their national customs. They became easy tools in the hands of unscrupulous politicians."
"Quotas are not applied to immigration from Canada or Latin American countries. Until 1929 Mexicans came in large numbers, particularly for common labor in the Southwest."
"Everywhere today [1940s] immigration is strictly regulated by law. Nations which still need people want immigrants who will readily become assimilated with their populations, and they want particular classes of workers. ... Totalitarian nations followed a mixed policy."
* * *
Immigration is very much in the news right now in the United States. Here are some tweets and posts of relevance, now and for the historical record...
If you don’t have Borders, you don’t have a Country!
We must always arrest people coming into our Country illegally. Of the 12,000 children, 10,000 are being sent by their parents on a very dangerous trip, and only 2000 are with their parents, many of whom have tried to enter our Country illegally on numerous occasions.
Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!
Infest? We’re not talking about insects, these are children! These are human beings. You are talking about kids who are scared, alone and being held in cages. You have the power to stop it, do it. https://t.co/D1kgSi4hNb
Acknowledging race's role in Trump's political ideology should not be relegated to opinion journos or "race" reporters. It's fact-based and has been from the campaign announcement to this very moment. It's not a show of bias to acknowledge that, it's a show of bias to ignore it
I don't talk about politics. I'm not allowed to talk about politics. I don't consider it politics to say that listening to children cry desperately for their parents made me feel physically ill. That is a truth, and perhaps my insistence that I'm still a human.
Sarah Sanders says the White House will not consider standalone legislation to stop family separation. They'll only consider legislation that includes funding for a border wall, etc.
So yea. The White House just confirmed that these children are, in fact, being used as pawns.
For all of you who lived through the long national nightmare of Papergreat and its readers grappling with that word in the Madison Square Garden postcard1, I thought you'd get a chuckle from this fishy cartoon postcard.
Mailed between a pair of New Jersey locations (Asbury Park and Irvington) in 1950, it features this cursive message on the back:
Hi Hon:
Guess where we
ended up? Bet
you can't????
Love
?
P.S. This pen stinks
Footnote
1. Need to catch up? Go to this post and scroll to the middle portion, titled "Complete roundup of that Madison Square Garden postcard word"
Cover subtitle #1:The Secret Doctrine of Cosmic Energy Revealed!
Cover subtitle #2:How to translate your inner dreams into the outer reality your desire!
That's a two-exclamation-point cover: Indeed.
Author: Anthony Norvell (1908-1990). Much more on him below.
Designer of groovy cover: Unknown
Publisher: Parker Publishing Company, West Nyack, New York
Year: 1971
Original price: Unknown, as dust jacket is price-clipped
What I paid: $4, which is in line with the cheapest used copies on Amazon
Pages: 223
Format: Hardcover
Dust-jacket highlights:
"When you tune in on its cosmo-astral forces, brilliant new powers will be yours."
"Mind Cosmology traps the invisible wavelengths of lifegiving cosmic energy and raises your rate of physical vibration to protect you against most forms of sickness..."
"Astral projection — yours for the asking"
"You'll see how to speed up time and make events happen in the eternal now..."
That basically describes all the Marvel superheroes: Correct.
First sentence: "For centuries past, mystics, seers, holy men and prophets have taught a secret doctrine of tremendous mental and psychic powers that man may tap when he wishes to achieve astounding miracles in his life."
Last sentence: "How to use the soul's divine inspiration to be aware of the tremendous forces that are alive within the universe, and be inspired by the beauty in nature, by beautiful music and high levels of inspiring poetry, literature, and art."
Random sentence from middle: "Mentally take trips to foreign countries you want to visit."
Goodreads rating: 4.67 stars (out of 5)
Amazon rating: 4.0 stars (out of 5.0)
Excerpt from Amazon review: In July 2017, Matt. S. wrote: "In a nutshell is this, find what speaks to you, the rest let go if it doesn't."
About the author: Anthony Norvell — some sources claim his real name was Anthony Trupo — was quite the colorful character. One site amusingly and disparagingly refers to him as "the da Vinci of clap-trap." He knew Mary Pickford, lectured at Carnegie Hall, might have attempted to found his own religion and claimed to have an 85 percent accuracy rate on his psychic predictions. ... His other books (it appears there were more than 30) included How to Train Your Child's Subconscious Mind of Health, Wealth and Happiness; Meta-Physics: New Dimensions of the Mind; Norvell's Dynamic Mental Laws for Successful Living; and The Occult Sciences: How to Get What You Want Through Your Occult Powers. ... You can read more about his life at Cornerstone Books; a Medium essay titled "The Surprisingly Noble Path to Power" by Mitch Horowitz; and an entertaining (though disputed and contentious) 2011 post on HIL-GLE Wonderblog. Here are some excerpts from that Wonderblog piece:
"Norvell is undergoing something of a renaissance on the Internet. His writings are now available on dozens of self-help sites. ... In truth, Norvell's current non-obscurity may have more to do with the fact that his works seem to have fallen into the public domain then to their actual quality."
"Norvell had essentially the same career that Jeane Dixon later plied. During his day, Norvell was the only astrologer anyone could name. That is, when he was an astrologer — which he sometimes wasn’t. Norvell changed his stripes a few times over the years."
"Norvell never claimed to be a spiritualist. His mumbo jumbo claim was that he was essentially selectively telepathic. (Later branded as Tele-Cosmic.) Instead of showing up with a pack of assistants, he worked alone. As opposed to an act full of props for parlor tricks pulled in the dark, Norvell does his routine with the lights on where everyone can see his hands."
"Having tried and failed as a sideshow promoter, astrologer, gigolo, star nanny, lecturer and author, Norvell spent much of 1959 taking a turn at the religious cult racket. It appears to have been something of a closed end effort. Calling himself Doctor Anthony Norvell and acting as the Director of the Church of Religious Mind Sciences of Hollywood, he began taking out advertisements for a series of lectures he was giving in Long Beach."
That's it. Check out the lengthy Wonderblog article (and delve into the comments afterward) to find out more about Norvell's eventful life.
I have been delinquent again. It's time to open the bulging digital mailbag and catch up on Papergreat's amazing reader comments...
Linen postcard: Parachute jump at Steeplechase Park, Coney Island: "Kayo56" shares this memory: "My uncle had been a paratrooper in Germany, and this was the closest thing he was going to come to recreating the experience in Brooklyn. He persuaded our mother, his twin sister, to go with him, and take my brother and me. We must have been preschool age, since we're 61 and 62 now. I don't remember being bothered by the ride up, but on the way down, I decided the ride was over before it was over, and attempted to stand up in preparation for disembarking. When we did actually come to a landing, it was with a bit of a thump, and I banged some part of me. I wasn't hurt, but it hurt at that moment, and I connected it with the ride, not my own actions. Although he was willing to take us on again, I refused. Since the parachute jump was still standing, for a long time, I was unaware that it was no longer in operation. When I learned that it was closed, part of me regretted the lost opportunity for a repeat ride, and the other part of me was glad I'd never be asked."
Cheerful Card Company can help you earn extra money for the holidays: The comments keep flowing for this 2012 post. Anonymous writes: "My mother sold these cards every fall to earn money for our Christmas gifts. Without the Cheerful Card Company we might never have had Christmas gifts. Definitely not a scam and I still smile remembering looking thru the 'selling book'."
Selections from the 1967 Top Value Stamps catalog: Eric Ferguson writes: "Santa brought me that Handy Andy Tool Set for Christmas in '70 or '71. It kinda sucked. The hammer was way too tiny to pound anything. My parents didn't even buy it: Just used their stamps. My mom always shopped at Kroger's, so she got the Top Value stamps."
And Joan adds: "This is a rather unusual post, but I really like it. I also want to know what envelope the Coby hair is in."
Provenance clues in 1878's "The Old Church, and Other Stories": Stealth Research Assistant and Executive Vice President in Charge of Ephemera Reunions "Mark Felt" once again provides some excellent sleuthing: "It is quite possible that 'Hiram William M. Bickel' is a name which refers to one person. See this grave in Shillington, Pennsylvania. His date of death matches this obituary in the Reading Times (scroll down or search for "Reading"). That obituary lists his parents as Moses and Mary Bickel. At the bottom of Moses' grave is the inscription 'Erected by H.W.M. Bickel.' At the bottom of Mary's grave is the inscription 'Erected by Mrs. Ella M. Gromis.' Might that be Ella M. Bickel's married name? Perhaps, yet despite assiduous sleuthing, there the trail goes cold..."
The evolution of Barry Leffler's KCC2188 QSL cards: Mark Felt writes: "Finally, a reference on Papergreat to a living person! Contact Barry Leffler directly [on Facebook] to fill in all the details. As for the Vocaline Company of America, here is the SEC's record of the initial public offering of that company in 1959, with a brief overview of the company's products."
[Chris adds: Yes, I did see that Leffler is on Facebook, and I've tried that route. He hasn't actually posted on Facebook in 6.5 years, and it can be difficult to contact/message someone that you're not Facebook friends with. But we shall see.]
[Chris replies: The card could be fed into a punch-card reader, thus "quickly" entering data — subscriber information, an account number and/or billing information — into an early computer. The "punched card" entry on Wikipedia adds, rather dryly: "A punched card or punch card is a piece of stiff paper that can be used to contain digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Digital data can be for data processing applications or, in earlier examples, used to directly control automated machinery. Punched cards were widely used through much of the 20th century in what became known as the data processing industry, where specialized and increasingly complex unit record machines, organized into semiautomatic data processing systems, used punched cards for data input, output, and storage. ... While punched cards are now obsolete as a storage medium, as of 2012, some voting machines still use punched cards to record votes."]
[Note from Chris: Indeed, I am a major fan of Paul Thomas Anderson's films. I'm fairly certain that Mom never saw any of them. These were her favorite movies.]
Saturday's postcard: Kozy Kabin Service Station & Kafe: Mark Felt writes: "The ineluctable march of progress forced owners Ralph and Julia Johnson to shutter the Kozy Kabin Service Station & Kafe in 1954, eighteen years after it opened. The history of this location and an impassioned eulogy for Mr. Johnson can be found here. Requiescat in pace."
1961 Ginza Tokyu Hotel guest booklet: Mark Felt writes: "You may find it interesting to learn of the basis of the $1/¥360 exchange rate which was in effect from 1949 to 1971: The word for the Japanese currency (pronounced 'en' in the native tongue but which we transliterate as 'yen') could mean 'money' or 'circle' in various contexts — try typing 'yen' into Google Translate — and there are 360 degrees in a circle. Also see The Yo-Yo Yen: and the Future of the Japanese Economy."
[Chris adds: Casting a young version of David Letterman will be difficult.]
The ephemera of families separated by the United States: Everyone gets their say here, as long as they're polite, so here is a response from a commenter referring to himself as Mr. Derp: "Poor illegal invaders and their hellish offspring who come here to lower the wages of the working class liberals claim they care oh so much about."
Complete roundup of that
Madison Square Garden postcard word
In late March I featured an old postcard of Madison Square. The message on the back contained a word that was difficult to discern, and the meaning of the message changed, depending on how you deciphered it.
Here's a recap that repeats some previous information but also presents it all in one place...
This undated postcard was mailed to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and the message on the back is fairly easy to decipher with the exception of one word. And that one word is crucial.
Mother,
I am going over to Brooklyn. it is 2 o'clock a.m.
[???] in this Joint are no good.
Johnnie
So, that [???] is the elephant in the room. Intially, four parties, myself included, took a stab at it and compared it to all the other words and letters on the back of the postcard. The chief possibility, we thought then, would turn the final sentence into an ugly ethnic slur.
So, at that point, we thought the mystery word could be:
Jews
Jeus (a misspelling of the above?)
Tens (a shortening of tenants?)
Something else
Part 2: Later, Ephemera Detective Extraordinaire "Mark Felt" checked in with this assessment:
The abbreviation "Tens" refers to "Tenements", squalid living quarters common in lower Manhattan at the turn of the century.
Note the cursive uppercase "T" which contrasts markedly with the cursive uppercase "J" in "Joint".
Furthermore, leaving Manhattan for Brooklyn as a means of avoiding individuals of Jewish heritage would have been counterproductive, then as now.
The exact year of issue of the 1¢ stamp is no simple task from [this] website alone, but should be between 1908 and 1923.
Still, if Johnnie were out and about in Manhattan at 2 AM — and if his postcard were postmarked at 2:30 AM — and based on the level of his handwriting and his date of birth in 1901, this card was most likely written and mailed in the early 1920s.
Part 3: But then, in response to Felt's comment, an anonymous commenter going by "L" left this tantalizing response: "It just sez 'Pens'. Compare the P to the one in "Penna" (nearly identical, except where the former faded), and note the lousiness of the pen the writer is using in several places — most significantly, in the two letters right before the sentence in question, which had to be gone over more than once."
Part 4: And, finally, this was Felt's rebuttal to "L": "The writer may very well have intended to write 'pen', but not in the sense of a writing utensil, rather 'any small enclosure in which someone or something can be confined'. See definition 1.2 under the second section here. That would make more sense in the context of the postcard."
So, to sum up, our likeliest choices are now:
Tens (a shortening of tenements)
Pens (writing utensil)
Pens (small enclosure)
Jews
We will never know the answer for certain, but I like the reader-submitted solutions of tens and pens (either variant) quite a bit, and I've now moved off my initial assumption that the writer was using a slur.
* * *
But wait, there's more...
The more F's the better, plus a little mystery: Karlee send me an email regarding this 2011 post: "Hi, Chris, I was doing some research on the PJ Mann Printery when I came across your blog page. I'm the great granddaughter of PJ Mann. In the mid-1930s the print shop moved locations from Calumet Avenue to 642 Conkey Street and was at that location until it closed in 1975. Thank you for posting that brain teaser."
Some 1965 Amazing Stories ads were too amazing to be true: Michael Bonesteel also emailed with this fun memory: "FYI, I ordered a number of books from the Werewolf Bookshop back in the late 1960s when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I always received the right books, but I also noticed that they always had a distinctive perfume-y odor to them. Not a bad smell, just peculiar. Maybe the owner burned a lot of incense."
Old-style Ruth Manning-Sanders library book borrower's card: Sometimes I get queries. This one is from Jessica, who wrote: "Hi Chris, I hope that you are well this evening. I was searching online for ephemera and specifically a library borrower card when I found your blog. I was wondering if you would allow me to use the image at the link below, to place on a shirt and/or tote to sell? I have an Etsy store, and I think there a lot of folks who would enjoy the nostalgia of this image."
Who am I to say no? You can check out the Ruth Manning-Sanders themed items at Jessica's Etsy store. I love the idea of folks walking around in a T-shirt featuring one of her library circulation cards.
Illustrated "mapback" on vintage Dell paperback "Death with Death": Meanwhile, I received this friendly email query from Deb: "Hello Mr. Man of a Thousand Interests! Do you know where or if there is a schedule of the artists who drew covers and maps for Dell by book?"
I don't know if there's a specific directory of the artists. The best resources I know are Bookscans.com this Flickr gallery. Plus, there are some articles that I note in the 2013 blog post.
Perhaps a reader can provide a better answer for Deb's specific question...
"Actually, I am facing some difficulties to understand the meaning of the blog. If you have any short video film related to your blog, then I would request you to share here. It would be great help."
There is a short video film for that. This was created by Wendyvee in early 2013:
The book is sort of a less-frenetic version of Errol Morris' documentary Fast, Cheap & Out of Control. I was browsing it a bit before bed last night and (of course) stopped at a chapter about Texas librarian and yard-sale enthusiast Cathy Henderson. Here's are some excerpts...
"I am looking for nothing, just for what catches my eye," Henderson says, and promptly qualifies this statement. "I generally look for jewelry, decorative objects, art, books and CDs, and accessories. I don't buy furniture. I already have too much furniture. All my friends know about my garage sale-ing and ask me to shop for them. Right now, I'm looking for a manual typewriter for a friend." ...
She calls eBay "the world's garage sale" — she is convinced it is better for sellers than for buyers, that some people first try to sell their wares on eBay, then, if that fails, take them to thrift stores or, another rung down the price ladder, offer then up on their lawns...
"I'm not too cerebral about why I go garage-saleing, but I'll track it back to my high school debate coach dissuading me from pursuing a career in archaeology," she says. "He said it didn't pay enough. Archaeology as treasure hunting had a real appeal for me, so now I do my treasure hunting at garage sales..."
* * *
Meanwhile, Rather, who will turn 87 this Halloween and might or might not have once had this book on his shelf, remains active and outspoken on social media. Here are a few of his very recent posts:
Quick gut check: what do you think George Washington would think of Trump? (Or Ben Franklin? Hamilton? Adams? Jefferson? Madison? Or, for that matter, FDR? Teddy Roosevelt? Eisenhower? Even Ronald Reagan?) We know what his living predecessors think of him - of both parties.
Trump disinvites Eagles from White House - while millions of Americans hurt. Puerto Rico suffers. Allies fret. The planet warms. He uses our National Anthem to sow disunity in what's supposed to be the UNITED States of America. I think history will mark it as akin to McCarthyism.
I look out at our nation today and feel great pride in so many ways and with so many people. And yet that pride must compete with a powerful gut-level feeling of shame. For make no mistake, we are in a moment of deep and abiding shame. And that shame must belong to all of us.
When we learn our American history, there is so much of which to be justly proud. But the nobleness of our great democratic experiment has also been marred by stark failures - where the chasm between the idealism of our founding documents and the reality of our laws and policies are, and should be, a cause of deep shame.
For all the talk of "all men are created equal", we allowed men, women and children to be bought, sold, beaten, raped, and lynched in the name of white supremacy. We wiped out entire tribes of native peoples, from their land and from our nation. We discriminated against immigrants due to their nationality, religion, and race. We interned patriotic Japanese Americans and ruined lives with anti-Communist and anti-gay witch hunts. We exploited workers and despoiled the environment. Time and again, we have reacted with callousness when we needed compassion. These sins of the past, and many others, remain with us.
Now, when I read the paper or hear the President and his apologists speak, I see an era where shame is once again a proper response. Who are we, that we separate parents from children seeking asylum, that we ignore the plight of the people of Puerto Rico, that we claim a President is like a king - above the law, and that we turn our backs on science and reason? It is shameful, and history will surely see it as thus.
But even in times of shame, there has been another American response. Leaders have risen up and said, we cannot allow this to be. We must feel this shame and channel it into action. For out of shame, has come an engine for the improvement of our nation. I feel that energy once more. I see many who refuse to be blinded by the moment. They speak with the moral justice of our history, and I truly believe, are determined to deliver us a better future.
There were some yard sales across the street this morning, so I ambled over and bought these for a few dollars. They'll be headed to the alarmingly understocked Little Free Library near my workplace in downtown Lancaster.
At first, [5-year-old] José was sad and withdrawn. He did not initiate any interaction with the [Michigan foster] family, but followed directions from [foster mother] Janice, who speaks basic Spanish, to do things such as wash his hands and come to dinner. ...
The one thing that animated him was discussing his "photos," as he called the family drawings.
He introduced "mi familia," pointing to the figures of his parents, brother and younger sister. Staring intensely at the sketch of his father, with a slight mustache and a cap, he repeated his name out loud again and again.
It was "just me and him" on the trip from Honduras, he told Janice one night as he lay in bed shuffling the pictures, taking turns looking at one and then the other.
"He holds onto the two pictures for dear life," Janice said, through tears. "It’s heart-wrenching."
